Women’s Cricket Gold, Already Done
So, the Asian Games kicked off in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and India’s already got something worth celebrating. The women’s cricket team opened the account with gold, and not in a close, nervy way either — they thrashed Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the final. Smriti Mandhana was the standout, 79 off 45 balls, absolutely flying, and that innings pushed India to 216/3, the highest total ever posted in women’s T20I at the Asian Games. After that, Sri Lanka just fell apart — all out for 69, with Deepti Sharma tearing through the middle order. This is India defending the gold they’d already won in Hangzhou back in 2023, so it’s back-to-back now. Not a bad way to start the campaign at all.
Men’s Squad, Asian Games 2026
Cricket at the Asian Games isn’t actually new, it’s been around since 2010 but this year’s men’s squad is getting a different kind of attention. Shreyas Iyer’s captaining, Tilak Varma’s his deputy, and the squad’s got a solid mix — Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, and Bumrah leading the pace attack, obviously. India go in as defending champions here too, since they won gold in the men’s event last time around.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the Name Everyone’s Saying
If you ask around, everyone’s actually talking about one name Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Just 15 years old, and he’s now the youngest player ever picked for an Indian team at any international event. He earned it too, coming off an IPL 2026 season that got him the Orange Cap. It’s the kind of story that makes you want to actually sit and watch the matches this time.
Dates to Keep in Mind
Men’s cricket matches start September 24 and run till October 3. So, there’s still a fair bit of cricket left before these stories fully written. The Games overall go on till October 4, so basically the men’s event wraps up right near the closing.
Beyond Cricket – Shooting and a Historic Bronze
It’s not just cricket carrying India though. Shooting’s actually been doing a lot of quiet work already, picking up medal after medal without much fuss. And there was this one moment that stood out; Suchika Tariyal won bronze in mixed martial arts, which is India’s first ever Asian Games medal in that sport. Kind of a big deal if you think about it. Cricket gets all the noise, sure, but there’s real stuff happening in other disciplines too, athletes just steadily adding to the tally while nobody’s watching too closely.
How India’s Done Before
Worth remembering how far this has come. Back in 2018, at Jakarta-Palembang, India ended up with 70 medals total. Then Hangzhou happened (technically the 2022 edition, though it actually took place in 2023 because of the pandemic delay), and that turned out to be India’s best Asian Games showing ever — 106 medals. This year in Aichi-Nagoya, we’re still early days. There’s the cricket gold, a few shooting medals, and that MMA bronze already in the bag, but honestly, it’s too soon to compare numbers against the older editions. A lot of the big stuff, athletics, badminton, boxing, wrestling, hockey hasn’t even started yet, and men’s cricket hasn’t kicked off either.
Why This Edition Feels Different
What makes this edition worth following is that it’s not just one storyline. You’ve got a champion women’s team defending their title in style, a 15-year-old making his international debut on a genuinely massive stage, and athletes in sports that rarely get headlines quietly making history of their own. Says a lot about how much depth Indian sport actually has right now.
What’s Still Left
There’s a long way to go still, men’s cricket, athletics, a whole lot more and India’s tally is only going to keep growing from here. Whether it beats that 2022 high of 106 medals, honestly, nobody knows yet. But a gold already on the board, shooters doing their thing consistently, and a historic MMA bronze — that’s a solid start by any measure.
